*Léon Damas, 1912-1978, French poet, born in French Guiana (“Guyane”); one of the founders,

along with Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire, of the “Négritude” literary and ideological movement

. . .

Their Idiot Song

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These fellows, the old pagan said, surely are out of their mind – that old proudly impervious derelict skirted long ago by floodwaters of salvation: Behold the great and gory handiwork of Death displayed for all on dazzling sheets this hour of day its twin nostrils plugged firmly with stoppers of wool and they ask of him: Where is thy sting?

Sing on, good fellows, sing on!

Someday when it is you he decks out on his great iron bed with cotton wool for your breath, his massing odours mocking your pitiful makeshift defences of face powder and township ladies’ lascivious scent, these others roaming yet his roomy chicken coop will be singing and asking still but